Professor Alison Peirse

Profile

My research asks, what does the horror genre reveal about gender? What happens when we consider women as makers of horror, rather than objects of terror? And when, how and why do our horror film histories exclude the creative contributions of women? 

I write books and essays, I make films, and I exhibit work at, and curate film festivals. My books include Rewriting Television (Rutgers UP, 2024), Women Make Horror: Filmmakers, Feminism, Genre (Rutgers UP, 2020), After Dracula: The 1930s Horror Film (IB Tauris, 2013), Korean Horror Cinema (Edinburgh UP, 2013). You can find out more about, and watch a lot of my films on my website. I have won numerous awards around the world for my books, essays and films, including BAFTSS Best Edited Collection for Women Make Horror, Best Documentary Short at the Wench Film Festival in India for Knit One, Stab Two, and the Screenwriting Research Network’s Outstanding Journal Article of the Year for my Feminist Media Studies research on commissioning and development practices in British television. From 2022 – 2024, I was an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellow, during which I worked on my next book Her Chainsaw Heart: A Feminist History of Horror Cinema, a journal special issue Bodies as Battlefields, and created and delivered Doing Women’s (Global) (Horror) Film History, a videographic training programme and special issue on horror cinema made by the global majority. 

I have examined traditional and practice-led research degrees internationally, across North America, Europe and Australia. I contribute my research expertise on horror to television, print media and radio, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio 4 Women’s Hour and the Guardian, and to podcasts including Netflix’s 10/10. I collaborate with international genre film festivals, including /slash Filmfestival (Austria), Offscreen (Brussels) and Etheria (USA). As a fiction writer, I have had competition placements with and / or trained and collaborated with Penguin Random House, the Royal Court Theatre and Channel 4. 

Responsibilities

• Deputy Director, Research and Innovation

Research interests

My academic research is in horror film, with a focus on illuminating women’s invisible or overlooked contributions to the production of the genre. Within this area, I focus on how, when and why we write histories of women’s contributions. To do this, I tend to work at the intersection of production studies and feminist film historiographies. I consider how we might think through these research findings in multiple registers, including written essays, festival programming and videographic criticism.

• Feminist Horror Cinema

Qualifications

• PhD in Cultural Research, University of Lancaster
• PG Cert in Academic Practice and Learning, University of Northumbria
• MA in Visual Culture (Distinction), University of Lancaster
• BA (Hons) Media and Popular Culture (First Class), Leeds Metropolitan University

Professional memberships

• Member of Women's Film and Television History Network
• Member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, including Horror SIG
• Member the British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, including founding member of Horror Studies SIG & Practice Research SIG
• Member of MECCSA, including Women's Network and Practice Network
• Member of the Screenwriting Research Network
• Founding Member of the Northern Television Research Group
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Research groups and institutes

• Creative Writing at Leeds

Current postgraduate researchers

• Tessa Saito King